BEFORE: Just a few days left in the animal chain, and I can't help but feel I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel on the topic. Tonight I'm still in the national parks system, checking out the wildlife. I watched "Open Season" way back in the first month of the project - so I should probably re-read my review and a summary of what was probably a very intricate plot...
Dan Aykroyd from "Yogi Bear" links through "Spies Like Us" to Chevy Chase, who links through "Vacation" to Jane Krakowski (last seen in "Cirque du Freak"), who voices a doe (a deer, a female deer!) tonight.
THE PLOT: After falling head over hooves in love with Giselle, Elliot's road to the altar takes a slight detour when Mr. Weenie is kidnapped by a group of pampered pets determined to return him to his owners.
AFTER: Talk about getting excessively complicated - who knew that forest animals conducted elaborate wedding ceremonies, just like humans?
Actually there are two distinct animal societies here, the domestics and the wild ones. And they don't seem to get along at first, except for a dachshund named Mr. Weenie who was once domesticated, but now lives among the wild ones in the forest. His owners never stopped looking for him though (Awwww....) so they leave dog biscuits out in the forest, and he gets reunited with them.
His forest friends think he's been kidnapped, so they go on the now-traditional Long and Difficult Quest to find him and bring him back, leading to the conflict between the two animal groups, pets and game. It all comes to a head in a weird setting - within the national park is a combination hotel and amusement park that caters to pets, complete with doggie-treat buffets and waterslides for animals. As far as I know, there's nothing like that in the real world, so why feature it in a film?
It's a sticking point for me - why would people go to a national park and then stay at a hotel, rather than sleep in the RVs so prominently seen in the film? Why go out into nature and then avoid it? If people wanted to go to an amusement park, they wouldn't travel in a camper to a national park. And why bring their adored pets with them to a place where they could get eaten by, say, a bear? But since this is what the script needed, from a story standpoint it becomes a case of the tail wagging the dog. (sorry...)
Also, we do get to learn which actors have similar voices to the first film's stars, Martin Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher. Were they too busy to reprise their roles, or too expensive? The conflict in the original "Open Season" was animals vs. hunters - which made a little more sense than forest creatures vs. cats + dogs.
So, a split decision on tonight's film - it's not as bad as "Yogi Bear", but neither is it as good as, say "Bee Movie".
Starring the voices of Joel McHale (subbing in for Kutcher, and last seen in "The Informant!"), Mike Epps (subbing for Lawrence), plus Billy Connolly (last seen in "Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties"), Crispin Glover (last heard in "9"), Steve Schirripa, Georgia Engel (last heard in "Open Season"), Diedrich Bader (last heard in "Bolt").
RATING: 5 out of 10 shock-collars.
No comments:
Post a Comment